1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a display control apparatus and a display control method and recording medium on which a computer program for executing a program software for such display control method is recorded. Particularly this invention relates to a display control apparatus and method, in which a plurality of cursors independently operated by each user are displayed on a display by superposing on a web page, and each user can select a new web page to be accessed next by operating each cursor.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, a WWW (World Wide Web) is established on an Internet, and any user can browse all kinds of web pages which are offered by a huge number of WWW servers using WWW browsing software.
Generally a so-called web page is described with an HTML (Hyper Text Mark up Language) and is able to have many link parts linking to all kinds of information such as other web page and image data, audio data and the like. In the WWW browser, link parts linked to other web pages are displayed with different color and different type font from other parts on the web page. Besides, a cursor placed on the link part is displayed with a different shape, and thereby a user can recognize that the link part is linked to other information.
An user operates a mouse to move a cursor on the link part, and clicks a left button of the mouse, then the WWW browser acquires new information linked to the link part from a WWW server, and the new information is displayed on a display. Namely at the link part, location information referred to as a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) to designate a location of the information on the Internet is described, and the WWW browser acquires the information specified by the URL, and displays thus acquired information.
As described above, a user operates the mouse to browse web pages transmitted from the WWW browser, and is able to select one of the web pages to be accessed next by clicking a corresponding link part.
Accordingly when browsing a web page with a plurality of users such as family or friends, one of these plural users operates the mouse as a representative.
However, when browsing a web page with the plurality of users, it is convenient if each user can operate each cursor and can select a desired web page. And if there is disagreement as to the selection of a web page among users, a web page to be accessed next is preferably decided by some adjustment such as a majority decision. Sharing of information by the plurality of users is very convenient.
In the above case, the plurality of users at the same location use a single display, but the sharing of information as described above can be applied to such a case where a plurality of users use a plurality of displays at different locations.
As a case where a plurality of users share information and individually operate an input device to control a character image as a cursor, is a television game machine, but at the television game machine, operation for each character image is done in the shared environment, but selection of a web page based on selection inputs by a plurality of users is not done.
In addition, there is a system in which shared information shared by a plurality of users is displayed on a plurality of displays. Such a system is, for example, a television conference system, a dispersion cooperation system which executes cooperation activities on a virtual space defined independently at each of a plurality of displays, or the like.
However, the television conference system makes all the participants share a common conference ground and the distributed cooperation system sums up work results by the plurality of users at the shared virtual space, and information to be accessed next is not determined in accordance with the selection input by the plurality of users.